California Voices

Homelessness

California is struggling to address its homelessness crisis. The conversation surrounding this complex humanitarian struggle has become emotionally charged and difficult to navigate. To better understand the solutions and areas of consensus, CalMatters asked a few of the people involved to simply explain what California should do about homelessness.

"The roots of homelessness run deep, stretching back through generations of exclusionary, exploitative and shortsighted housing and employment policies. For every 100 extremely low-income households in California, 24 homes are available and affordable to them. The problem is reinforced every day by how difficult California’s laws and regulations – and often our neighbors – make it to build deeply affordable housing."

Tomiquia Moss

head of a nonprofit advocacy group

"I went through this cycle four times over more than a decade: safely housed, living in my car, sometimes the streets. Countless landlords refused me because I had a Section 8 voucher."

Zella Knight

formerly homeless

"Increased federal funding is necessary, but not sufficient. Yet without it, it will be difficult to end homelessness."

Dr. Margot Kushel

leading homelessness researcher

"Unfortunately, my story is not unique. So many of our neighbors experiencing homelessness do not have access to the kind of care they need to overcome substance use disorder, which is almost always a significant barrier to finding stable employment or securing permanent housing."

Kimberly Knopik

formerly homeless

“We are pragmatic to a fault. In 2011, our founding partners … made two commitments: that we would invest all available public resources into permanent housing, and that we would prioritize the most vulnerable – those most likely to die due to homelessness – for housing first. This laser focus has served us well.”

Sara Martinez

Houston-area homelessness response system worker

“Finding a way to house this vulnerable population is challenging, but it’s a challenge that must be met – not only on humanitarian grounds but also for practical reasons: Servicing people on the streets is more expensive than stabilizing them in housing. But taking people … and placing them in housing without supports to address their mental illness is a recipe for failure."

Patricia Fontana

mother of a son with a serious mental illness

“This is not an impossible dream. To reach tens of thousands of people living in tent encampments, we need to focus spending more sharply through our existing Mental Health Services Act, the millionaire’s tax I authored in the Assembly and that was approved by voters 20 years ago as Proposition 63.”

Darrell Steinberg

longtime Democratic politician and mental health advocate

“The long-term solution is building more housing, building more behavioral and mental health facilities, and training and educating more people to provide services at those facilities. In the short term, we need to tackle the health and safety issues surrounding the encampments that have sprung up in communities throughout the state.”

Brian Jones

leading Republican state legislator